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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles conclude our series on online teaching practices as they reflect on all the lessons that we've learned throughout this series.
Jared:Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Ryan. Yes. Rob, we are concluding our series on online teaching practices in this episode.
Rob:It's gone by quickly this It
Jared:has, it truly has. I don't know, I enjoyed going through the series. I think it's useful for sure. It's helped me think more about online teaching and besides just the best practices I kind of get myself into a rut about and think more, I don't know, holistically, organically, kind of more, I guess, more globally about Practically? Practically.
Jared:I don't see not as much practical at this time. I think it's more of like what you tend to say, making the implicit explicit. And I think that to a degree, I think it's also reflective practices definitely for the educator and using the resources available around them to help build an online course. Not just the best practices of chunking and formative and summative assessments, but more of the unseen aspects that are needed to develop a good online teaching course.
Rob:So in this final episode, we've we've thought about each one that we've done, and we've tried to condense them down. Just gonna review the lessons for our listeners today. We've got six of those. Yep. So I think if you've been listening at all, this first one probably won't come as no surprise to anyone.
Rob:But, you know, if you haven't listened to all of these, this is a good place. Pause. Well, you can pause. You can go back. Mhmm.
Rob:But we'll also, I think, hopefully, Lord willing, bring the best of this, you know, the six episodes that we had here as we as we draw it to a close.
Narrator:So Sure.
Rob:Why don't you get us started with the first one?
Jared:Yeah, so the first one is the reflective practice fuels everything. And that's something we started with and that we've repeated over and over again, the importance of self reflection when it comes to any type of teaching. But we really honed into online teaching in this aspect of it. If you think of it this way, a key reminder would be learning equals lasting change. And we can't expect our students to change until we ourselves as an instructor changes.
Jared:And this can be difficult because it requires us to be vulnerable. We get into routines in our teaching. We like the way we teach certain things because maybe we've seen some benefit from it. And I'm the first to admit this when I teach, but I started to see a decline. I thought, oh, I think it's just the student.
Jared:I never really thought about it being my own teaching. So maybe this part could be a little risky because being reflective may reveal some sore spots in your own teaching.
Rob:It feels unsafe.
Jared:It really does. It feels like, you know, having someone else the thing that I feared the most when I taught K 12 is having someone come in and observe my teaching because I thought that was terrifying. They're And I didn't want to have the blind spots revealed to me. I wanted to assume everything was fine because I'm a perfectionist and so that was a bit scary, but
Rob:Well, it's because you feel like your job is on the line. Yeah. I think most teachers would identify that with that. I think most teachers want to know how they can do better. But with what you experienced, right, and what my wife experiences and others experience, it feels more like your job is on the
Jared:line. They're going to come back and say,
Narrator:you picked the wrong career.
Jared:I mean, lived with that fear, and I was like, I don't want someone to tell me that, so I just wanna kind of stay to myself and lock my door so no one could come in.
Rob:But you know growth lives there.
Jared:Oh yeah, I do, and I'm aware of that. It's just hard to overcome that, but I get that. Something you could do, this is something I've done before with my students, is have them reflect on the course for the week or maybe the lecture for the day if it's a face to face course, but since you're speaking online, it could be at the end of the week, have the students reflect, which we've talked about before and will probably What come up worked this week? What did you not understand? There's a lot of, like, quote unquote exit slips that we see that address this kind of a thing.
Jared:And then be honest with yourself, and if a student has an issue with how you're teaching, don't take it personally and don't assume the student's wrong. There could be some validity to what it is that they're saying, so, you know, be willing to confront and address.
Rob:And to balance that, if I may, I would also say you can take it the other direction and listen to every single thing that's said.
Jared:Oh yeah, and take it personally.
Rob:And take it personally. That is an art and of itself. How to take feedback, how to identify really good constructive feedback, and then how to remove and let go of feedback that is unhelpful. Yep. Like, things where they make statements about you instead of how you can do things better.
Rob:Like, this was the worst teacher ever.
Jared:Well, if you gave them a bad grade or you called them out Correct. In class, you they could be like, oh, this guy's the worst.
Rob:Yeah. Alright. So let's move on to lesson number two. Sure. Why not?
Rob:I'll take this one. Organization is an act of empathy.
Jared:I like it.
Rob:So we spend a lot of time talking about organization and how it really helps our students. And in the online modality, you really have to have those things there because of the distance. Right? And this structure that you build helps bridge connections back to not only the content, but to the professor or the teacher, as well as other students as well. So one of the things that we use here in our online courses are things called facilitator guides.
Rob:And those facilitator guides are remember we had that conversation there. It's similar to what we talked about with k through 12 teachers in developing sub plans.
Narrator:Mhmm.
Rob:So these detailed layouts of the course, how it should be taught, what are these points where students could have problems, right? And it just provides this layout to those who are taking the course, but also to those who may be teaching the course and and they're not the ones who designed it. So good organization using facilitators guides helps everyone out.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:And one way, you know, to get into this is pick a troubling module inside of a course. And maybe, you know, you could remove a link or add an overview page or test with a colleague to see, hey, just look at this, almost like a focus group. And you have them look at this one little aspect of your course and see if they if it makes sense to them.
Jared:Could you teach this? Could you teach
Rob:this exactly based on what I've given you? Yeah. And I think you'll see a lot that comes from that. But overall, be kind to your students, be kind to yourself, and be kind to other instructors and, you know, tell them what they should expect. Not just overall in terms of course objectives, but on a week to week basis or a day to day basis.
Jared:Yeah. And I would add that having an organized course alleviates a lot of the potential frustration and stress that your students could have in taking your course. When they go into a course and see it's well organized, well put together, the links work, the assignments are published, it just makes a world of difference Alright, for your lesson three. Yeah, take us on to your favorite. Collaboration.
Jared:Good old collaboration. As we put it in our episode, you're not on an island. We talked about the type of boat that you're on. Are you in a single canoe? Are you by yourself?
Jared:Or are you working with others? And the dream as an instructor is to be all rowing in the same direction with a lot of people in one boat. We talked about this as ways of collaboration by having your peers look at your course, like we mentioned at the organization one in the previous lesson, having them review your course, reaching out to your CTL on your campus or CT and L or whatever other abbreviation you may have on your campus. Consult with them, have them CT and E is another one. That's a popular one as well.
Jared:Or another one that I've seen a lot of schools do, I know that Boise State does this, They do student co design where they have an instructor can come in and it's confidential, which I think is interesting. No one else knows about it, only the CTL and the instructor, and they put them with a student that's been trained in instructional design.
Rob:Oh, okay.
Jared:And they sit down with the student and the student goes through the course with them from a student perspective. That's cool. And gives them their feedback, which I think is an interesting way of doing it. Yeah, and so, you know, a challenge for this is to make some contacts with somebody that you know and communicate and say, Hey, why don't you give me a five minute tour of your course? Or have them walk through your course and ask them for feedback on it.
Jared:Just a way of partnering with someone else. Again, I think this goes back to the first lesson, being reflective. You've got to be willing to admit when you're struggling in an area, And I think this could be a way of then taking that next step and reaching out to someone and saying, hey, need some help or how can I improve this or make this better?
Rob:Yeah. Let's move on to lesson number four, crystal clear communication. Now, we used an acronym during the episode on this particular topic That is correct. That was unclear.
Jared:It's ironic, isn't It's
Rob:steeped in irony. It is. Very, very deep. And we asked the audience to kinda guess each letter before we revealed it. But given the time, I'm gonna ask you.
Jared:Okay.
Rob:Tell us. Sure. What is the acronym?
Jared:Now in order to avoid being unclear, you must follow the acronym unclear. Let's keep that in mind.
Rob:Are we clear?
Jared:I don't know. The u is unexplained jargon or acronyms. These are things you should avoid. Alright. That's the u.
Jared:N, nonspecific instructions or vague prompts. C is complex or run on sentences. L is lack of examples or concrete models. E is erratic formatting or inconsistent styling. A, it's the big one, assumptions about prior knowledge.
Jared:And R, rushed or delayed feedback. Avoid those things so you will be clear and not unclear.
Rob:And one of the ways to do this is to do kind of like a preemptive q and a.
Jared:It's great.
Rob:Right? Kinda anticipate questions that your students are gonna have so that you can answer them almost like a FAQ. Yeah. And I would say having an FAQ in your courses is very important. It's something you're gonna wanna build over time because not every class is gonna have the same questions.
Rob:Mhmm. Not every generation will bring the same perspective to your course. So their questions are gonna be a little bit different. So how can you know, what's one way today that we can give to our listeners? And I think that's just record a ninety second, a week zero, kind of like an intro Mhmm.
Rob:Video walking them through the syllabus highlights, and be clear on things that students might stumble on or point out, hey, a lot of students didn't do really well with this assignment because they didn't plan enough time in advance to really deal with it, with the time. So, you know, giving those kinds of inputs, I wouldn't make it terribly long. Keep it six minutes or less. I think the sweet spot is somewhere around what, three to four?
Jared:Yeah. Yeah.
Rob:So that means you're gonna have to be on the ball. It's probably a good idea to script it too.
Jared:Oh, yeah.
Rob:You know, that way you know what you're gonna say and you can stick to it. So that's number four.
Jared:Yeah, number five, lesson number five, cultivating community online. In that episode, we talked about the difference between ephemeral, learning focus, and social communities. Ephemeral being just
Rob:how do we define ephemeral? Ephemeral was things that just happen. They're not planned. And they could be things that, like, somebody likes watching, I don't know, baking show.
Jared:Somebody likes hiking up mountains. Uh-huh. Other people like to sit on the beach. Correct. And watch the tide roll in and roll Yeah.
Jared:Those are different types of people. And they
Rob:may Sitting on the dock of a bay.
Jared:That's right. You do what you gotta do. But then the learning focused ones are more of like the communities you have in your courses, like we talked about in my doctorate program, in our cohort, it was a learning focused community. And then you have your social communities based on likes of video games or other hobbies. F1, for example, was one that we talked about in the episode.
Jared:But yeah, it's just that, you know, try to find a way of building that community. We also talked about developing some interactions in your course that are low stakes, fun, and course relevant. But it's an interesting give and take with that because, like we talked about, like backchanneling, like it keeps coming up. That's something that's very organic and primarily driven by students. An instructor who starts that, it seems like based on research, it doesn't go as well.
Jared:It's not as
Rob:They can't be in the middle of
Jared:it. Correct. But if you had something like a water cooler talk in your course, something besides the icebreaker, just a way of more of an informal, fun thing where the instructor can maybe post, maybe not, or just respond in a lighthearted manner. It can help start to build that community and have the connective tissue between student and instructor will start to form within the course. Then research has said that students who don't feel connected in a course don't necessarily want to do well in the course, they don't feel motivated as much.
Jared:But also, and this is a huge one, when you've got a discussion going on in your course that is based on your content, don't wait till the end of the discussion to chime in as a instructor. Right. Be involved throughout the process, throughout the week. It doesn't have to be a lot, it can just be clarifying questions, it could be just supporting or praising a student for a great point or a great question, but don't wait until the end because it's going to help build community and as a healthy byproduct of this, it keeps your finger on the pulse of the course so you know what specifically is going on clarify, because it's a lot easier to correct in the middle than afterward. So that's something definitely with that community aspect.
Jared:Not only does it build community, but it helps your students with the academic side of things as well.
Rob:The final lesson is lesson number six. And we had Jacob in the studio with us that day. Yes. And he he did a great job of giving us some really good things to think about. And I think that's kind of a big takeaway is media in your course is more important than you think.
Rob:We talked about basically five media pitfalls that we have seen, and those really quick are pace. Need to make sure you have a good pace. Intelligibility. You're speaking clearly. The quality needs to be there.
Rob:Diversity in presentation, not just vocal tones, but I think even with the visuals that you use.
Jared:Modality as well. Modality. Mhmm.
Rob:Right? And then the last one is congruence. What that means is if you do something in text, you can't say something different in video. Yeah. Or if you've got something in your PowerPoint, so let's say you give people your PowerPoint slides, which okay.
Rob:You know, that's not my favorite, but if that's what you do, okay.
Jared:Let's say you do episode, I think.
Rob:Yeah. Yeah. If you've got errors in your notes or anything like that, and then you have to correct those, that starts throwing up opportunities for the students to say to themselves, well, how do I know I can trust this information? Yep. So making sure that those things are clear, they're congruent, very, very important.
Rob:Here are two things that we said, at least from our perspective of what we've seen over the years, would be extremely helpful to to those doing media and online courses. One was shoot your video at eye level. If you're gonna shoot video, don't shoot below eye level. We don't people don't wanna see up other people's noses. It also doesn't make you look really good.
Rob:And, you know, we're not here to try to like it always you always have to make yourself look good. But we can just make a modicum of effort to make sure that you don't look awful. Correct. Right? And shooting at eye level at a minimum with natural lighting, make sure your lighting is good because you don't wanna look jaundiced.
Rob:Yeah. Like you're in a hospital or something like that.
Jared:Or blown out like as if the surface of the sun is exploding.
Rob:Yeah. Because you yeah. The sun is literally baking your face.
Jared:Yeah. So Harsh shadows are also bad.
Rob:Right. But eye level, natural light, those two, I think, would be great. And then the next is audio. Audio was pretty clear to us. You can have bad video, but if you have bad video with bad audio, that's a no no.
Rob:Mhmm. You can have good video. And if you've got bad audio, it's also a no no. If you've got good audio with bad video, you're fine. Yep.
Rob:Which kinda blew my mind.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Right? Mhmm. Kinda lends itself to this idea. If there's anything you need to pay attention to, It's clarity in your audio because that, from what we've seen and what we see in the studies, especially the one that we mentioned throughout this series, that makes a bigger difference than pixelated video. Yeah.
Rob:Or even somebody shooting up their nose.
Jared:Yeah. So People will tolerate up your nose as long as your audio is good.
Rob:Yeah. But if your audio is bad. It's bad.
Jared:It's the first thing they notice.
Rob:Yeah. And they'll probably jump off the jump off the video.
Jared:Yeah. Or they'll skip through and look for what they need and be done with it.
Rob:Look like is there is there what do you call that?
Jared:There a
Rob:transcript Yeah. Of
Jared:I mean, you could you could very well just go audio only and it would be acceptable. That's something I've done in a couple courses where a faculty member doesn't feel comfortable being in front of a camera. We at least just do audio only and it gets the information across as well. All
Rob:right, take this home.
Jared:All right, taking this home. So again, let's summarize. Self assessment, deliberate design, collaborative refinement, transparent communication, vibrant community, engaging media. It all centers around self reflection. So you've got to step back and look at your teaching and figure out, of those areas, where can I improve?
Jared:Is lacking? Ask your students, collaborate with other faculty, collaborate with your CTL, find a way of searching out, you know, what is something small that I can improve for my students? And again, as we talked about in some of our other stuff as well, this is an iterative process. Yep, iterative design. It's reflect, adapt, test, and repeat.
Jared:It's not going to be perfect the first time. I know we all want our teaching to be perfect, that's kind of why we don't wanna reflect on the process. We just assume our teaching's perfect, At least that's for me anyway. But it really isn't, so you've got to be willing to look at it and improve where you can.
Rob:Yeah, there's just that continual process, it's an ever spiraling upwards towards, you know, quality in your teaching, quality in your content, and quality experiences for your students.
Jared:Yeah. On to the next series, Robert. I'm looking forward to it. Let's do it.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions about our teaching on online teaching practices, feel free to shoot us an email at ctlpodcastcederville dot edu, or you can connect with us on the LinkedIn and send us a message that way. Finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.